


Suffer in Silence

by mailroomorder



Series: The Chronicles of Kid Chronic [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blangst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Molestation, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape of a Minor, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Statutory Rape, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-05 10:19:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3116465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mailroomorder/pseuds/mailroomorder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the ages of 6-16, Blaine is consistently raped by his baseball coach Paul--a surrogate uncle of his. Blaine meets Paul when he is 6 and his parents sign him up for tee ball. Paul takes an instant liking to Blaine and easily integrates himself into the Andersons' lives, quickly becoming a mentor to Blaine and a close friend of his parents.</p><p>Part Three in Kid Chronicle Verse:</p><p>Blaine thought being thirteen was hard, but clearly he had no idea what 'hard' was. He's fifteen and in high school, and everything is changing: his body, his relationship with his parents, his relationship with Paul. He's hitting puberty and starting to learn more about who he is. It's a whole lot more difficult than he ever expected, especially when he realizes that he likes guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This story is completed and will be completely posted this week.
> 
> This story contains references and scenes of rape, semi-explicit non-con, and self harm.
> 
> Tumblr Link [here](http://mailroomorder.tumblr.com/post/107148061880/suffer-in-silence)

                Blaine hasn’t been home in two days.

                He spends the first night at his friend’s apartment reading comics and talking about _Firefly_ and _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. He spends the second night walking around Westerville and listening to music. When he gets tired he uses his backpack as a pillow, careful not to smoosh it and ruin what’s inside.

                When he’s bored he reads more comics and sketches a few more Kid Chronic panels, but nothing feels right. He can’t get any words on paper and every color he picks up just feels _wrong_. The plain white paper ends up with dark black smudges outlining a silent night for Kid Chronic. There’s no storyline, no one to save, and no sunlight. Just Kid Chronic huddling under black and white glowing street lamps and sitting on the roofs of buildings, watching everything unfold below him.

                He left on Friday after school—went straight to Matt’s apartment and never left. Matt lives with his mom. His dad left the family when Matt was four, and since then his mom has been working long hours and several jobs so she can afford their tiny, one bedroom apartment in a cheap part of town. It means that she’s hardly ever home, and if she is then she’s sleeping. It’s why he feels so comfortable there; no father, a mother who’s rarely around. Blaine thinks he spends more time at her apartment than she does.

                He and Matt spend the rest of Friday watching anime and sci-fi movies and TV shows before retreating into their own comic books and ordering pizza. He passes out on the pull out couch a little after midnight with Matt a few inches away from him.

                When he wakes up the next day, Blaine grabs his phone from his backpack to check the time. He’s greeted with dozens of missed calls and text messages, all from his frantic parents. He erases the voicemails—doesn’t even listen to them. He already knows what they say. It’s the same every time.

                _Please come home. We miss you. Blaine, just let us know you’re all right_. _We love you so much, honey._

_We’re not mad, Blaine. We’re just scared. Please. Please let us know you’re okay. We just want to help you._

_Blaine. Blaine, please. You’re scaring us._

_We’ll always love you. Always. No matter what you do, no matter where you are. We will always love you._

The first time he ran away and listened to those messages—which were even more verbose and hysterical and begging and pleading than they are now—Blaine broke down and nearly ran home into the comforting arms of his parents. It took all his willpower not to. The second time he ran away he knew not to listen to those messages until after he went home. Around the sixth time he stopped listening to them altogether.

                He sends a curt message back letting his mother know that he’s safe. Before he can even put the phone down it starts ringing. Blaine ignores the call and turns his phone off before hauling himself up to go to the bathroom and grab some cereal from Matt’s kitchen.

                By the time he’s done eating, Matt’s awake. Blaine asks if he can borrow Matt’s bike, and when Matt mumbles an okay, Blaine grabs his backpack and heads out. He bikes to the local library ten miles down the road and spends the rest of the day there before it closes. Then he goes to a bookstore for a few hours until finally, around ten o’clock, he’s left to wander the streets of Westerville. It’s really not bad. It’s almost preferable.

* * *

 

                The first time he runs away for the weekend—well, the second time he ran away, really—it does not end well.

                It ends up pretty much like it did the first time he ran away, when he was thirteen and went to Columbus: he gets picked up by a cop and taken to the nearest police station until his parents come and pick him up.

                He is once again greeted with their red faces and puffy eyes and tear streaked hugs. This time he doesn’t cry. He is almost fifteen and just wants a few hours to himself. This time he isn’t running from Paul. He is running from himself.

                Because there is seriously something wrong with Blaine Anderson, and Blaine thinks he knows what it is.

                It’s this feeling that leaves him _wrecked_ and crying, pulling at his hair until small wads come out. It makes him scratch at his arms until they bleed and bang his head against his fists until he gets dizzy and nauseous. More than once he’s ended up in the bathroom puking and spitting bile into the toilet.

                He’s almost fifteen, and really, no matter how much shit has happened in his life up to this point, he’s never wanted to die. Not _really_. But _this. This_ makes him want to die. It makes him want to stab himself in the heart or jump off a building, fall into a freezing cold tub of water and never resurface. He sometimes stares at saws and serrated knives and envisions cutting his penis off. Because at almost fifteen years old, Blaine can’t push it down anymore. And so often these feelings come bubbling up inside him when he’s at school or watching movies, and guys are shirtless or smiling or talking excitedly, eyes shining with happiness. And this strange and so very _wrong_ feeling will burst inside of Blaine, and Blaine **_hates_** himself for it.

                He wishes he could hate Paul, but he can’t. Not really. Paul may be an asshole, but he didn’t _make_ Blaine feel like this. Blaine did this to himself. He doesn’t know how or why or when, but he knows that something must have broken inside of him and now he’s _this—_ this _thing_ that he doesn’t want to be.

                So he runs. Just for the weekend. Just so he can have a few hours to himself and not be surrounded by walls and family and expectations to smile and laugh and act normal and socialize and do chores. He runs, even though he promised his mother a year ago that he would never do it again.

                He keeps doing it, too. Whenever the feelings get to be too much to handle, or whenever he’s afraid that Paul might ask him to come over for the night. He does it when his parents piss him off and ask too many questions about his life or his friends or how he’s feeling—something they started doing after the very first time Blaine ran away.

                For the most part he was able to get away with it for a few months. He really only ran away once a month—two or three times at the most. Sometimes he didn’t really run away at all; rather, he’d skip the bus after school and walk around town or go to the library and come home after dinner, just in time to go to bed. But then he did something stupid and ran away on a day he had an appointment with his psychologist.

                John’s office called Blaine’s parents and asked if everything was okay. Blaine had rarely missed an appointment, and the few times he did his parents always called up to let the office know that Blaine wouldn’t be in.

                John’s secretary got a mumbling, bumbling, crying Andrea on the phone, and the secretary immediately handed the phone off to John. John sat at his desk listening to the story of how Blaine ran away again and how it wasn’t the first time and how Andrea doesn’t know what to do and how she feels like she can’t control her son anymore.

                When Blaine came home after school a day and a half later (because he almost always goes to school even when he runs away), his parents whisked him off to John’s office where Blaine was put into the schedule immediately as an emergency patient with a two-hour time slot. Blaine was pissed, at himself and his parents, and spent his allotted time pacing around the room in a frenzy while pulling his hair and scratching his arms. He went back and forth from muttering profanities and disgust towards his parents to screaming and crying hatred and repulsion about himself. He hardly stopped enough to let John get more than a few simple sentences in.

                Those two hours turn into almost three and a half when Blaine, in a fit of tears and self-hatred, accidentally came out to John. John cancelled the rest of his appointments that day immediately, and Blaine spent half an hour crying on the couch with his face buried in his hands and John telling him that it was okay. When Blaine refused to talk anymore and asked if he could go home, John eventually nodded his assent and walked a red and puffy eyed Blaine into the waiting room where both of his parents were.

               Blaine went back every day that week—even on weekends—until John was sure that Blaine wouldn’t make any “rash” decisions. Blaine hardly talked during those follow up meetings, already upset enough for outing himself. That was when his sexuality became a fact he had to face as opposed to a far off notion that he could push into the back of his head and never think about.

                Blaine knew that John was scared. He could see it in the way John would hesitate before offering advice or pushing Blaine to open up, in the way John would step on glass when mentioning the queer community or offering positive facts on gay men. But for the most part Blaine stayed silent, afraid that if he opened his mouth that the rest of the story would fall out. He could tell that John was afraid that Blaine would kill himself. But Blaine swore that he wouldn’t. The few times he did talk that week were to assure John that while he was upset and angry, he wasn’t suicidal. He told John that if he tried to institutionalize him, Blaine would run away again—for good. It was an empty threat, and they both knew it.

                In the end John gave Blaine his business card. It had his personal cell phone number on it. He told Blaine that he could call him at any hour of the day or night if he ever needed someone to talk to or if he was ever in an emergency. Blaine took the card and nodded.

                “Put my cell number in your phone, okay?” John asked.

                Blaine robotically took his phone out and did what he was told.

                He already had the card at home, stuffed in a drawer and never looked at. It’s where he put this one, too.

* * *

 

                Six months later and Blaine is back to just weekly therapy sessions and the occasional weekend getaway. His parents are no longer as surprised when Blaine doesn’t show up to dinner or come home after school. They still get incredibly anxious, though, and they’ll call Blaine repeatedly and send him dozens of texts until Blaine responds.

                Normally all he has to do is send a text telling them both that he’s alive and safe and promise to come home soon. As long as he does that a few times, all is (relatively) okay.

                He wishes that he didn’t do it, though. He wishes more than anything that he could just stay put and not leave—that he never left in the first place. It’s broken his family up in a way that his original running away never did.

                They don’t _trust_ him anymore, and he can see it. Whenever he leaves in the morning and says, “See you tonight!” as he walks out of the door, he can see the doubt in his mother’s eyes and the hope in his father’s. His mom started going to therapy immediately after Blaine ran away the second time, and once a month both of his parents join him and John for a family therapy session.

                Sexuality is never a topic because Blaine never talks about it—not with John, not with his parents, not with his friends. His parents still don’t know, he refuses to talk to John about it and shuts down for the entire session whenever John so much as merely mentions anything about homosexuality, and he refuses to even acknowledge it for himself as anything more than something terrible that he never has to talk about or act on.

                His current life goal, besides getting out of Westerville and leaving Paul behind, is to get married to a girl. He doesn’t want kids. Kids are messy and dirty and loud and obnoxious.

                And if he has kids of his own then he’d have to spend time alone with them. And he’s terrified to do that. He’s scared of what he might do. He’s afraid that he might be like Paul, that him being gay is just the beginning of something deeper and darker. He knows that there’s a difference between homosexuality and pedophilia, but that’s for other people.

                For _him?_ For him it’s the same thing. It _has_ to be. Because otherwise he wouldn’t be gay. Otherwise he wouldn’t find boys attractive. Because he doesn’t derive any sexual satisfaction out of sex with Paul. And if Blaine were merely _just_ gay, then he’d be turned on by what Paul does to him. But he’s not. He hates it and it hurts and he feels so empty and tired _every time_.

                It terrifies him, the thought that perhaps he doesn’t like sex with Paul is because Paul is older. Not young enough. Maybe because Paul’s not a child.

                He doesn’t let himself think it, because when he does he ends up in the bathroom puking his lungs up and locking himself in his room for the day, refusing to go to school. Or he’ll leave—run away and hope he can run faster than his thoughts.

* * *

 

                The difference between now and a few years ago is that now Blaine’s expected to be an active participant. But it’s a fine line; he can’t take control or show any dominance. But he can’t just lay there and zone out. He has to make eye contact and moan now, whether he wants to or not. Whether it’s _real_ or not. He has to run his hands softly or roughly up and down Paul’s sides, cup Paul’s thighs, squeeze Paul’s butt. He has to slither down Paul’s torso, kissing and nuzzling his way down.

                He can’t just lie there and take it anymore, and he doesn’t know exactly how it got to be like this. He doesn’t know when Paul started demanding he be more vocal or more affectionate.

                Sometimes he’ll go over to Paul’s house after baseball practice and eat dinner there. It’s not a new thing—he’s been doing it all his life. But the dinners start to feel likes dates, and Blaine doesn’t know if it’s always been like that, or if it’s just that now he’s old enough to understand it. It also sometimes feels incestuous, like Paul’s his father asking about how his day was and how he did on his math test. But after baseball practices or games, Paul will often put his hand on Blaine’s shoulder and squeeze reassuringly. Everyone will be gathering their stuff to head home with their parents, and if Blaine’s parents aren’t there Paul will announce in the dugout, “And you, Blaine, get to come home with me!” Or, “Don’t forget Blaine, I’m taking you home.”

                All his teammates groan out of jealousy. They love Paul. They love Paul’s house. They love the mid-season parties he has in his backyard with his pool. They love the end of season get-togethers he throws in his basement. They love that every year Paul moves up in coaching and stays with them instead of staying and coaching the same age group.

                Blaine pretends to be as excited as they are about Paul as a coach. He pretends to be as excited about sports and baseball, but it’s hard.

                He hates baseball.

                He plays community baseball still, because Paul doesn’t want him playing for the high school. Paul isn’t the coach of the high school baseball team, so Blaine’s stuck playing catcher for a sport he hates under the supervision of the man who rapes him.

                The irony there doesn’t go past him.

                Sometimes he laughs about it—about how he plays _catcher_ and how all of the gear he wears isn’t enough to stop the affectionate pats on the back that Paul gives him when he walks off the field. Other times he cries.

                He really fucking hates baseball. He doesn’t even watch it. Not unless he’s with Paul and Paul puts it on TV. Blaine’s favorite team is the Cardinals because Paul’s favorite team is the Cardinals. His favorite food is cheeseburgers and steak because Paul’s favorite foods are cheeseburgers and steak. He wears a lot of green because Paul likes how it makes his eyes pop.

                Kid Chronic wears green, too.

* * *

 

                While decidedly not suicidal, Blaine is definitely depressed. He knows this. He doesn’t want to do anything about it, though, because he thinks he’s managing it pretty well. He’s accepted it, and it really wasn’t that hard to do. John asked him one time during their first few sessions if he knew what depression was and if he felt like it applied to him.

                “Of course it does,” Blaine had said matter of factly. He was thirteen, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that your life sucks and you wish it didn’t. John had spent several sessions casually talking about feelings and not wanting to get out of bed and not wanting to eat and the inability to pay attention to certain tasks. Blaine rolled his eyes throughout the whole thing. _Of course I’m depressed_ , he thought. _My life stinks._

                As he grew older his reasoning changed.

_Of course I’m depressed. I have no control over anything._

_Of course I’m depressed, my baseball coach shoves his dick up my ass any chance he can get._

_Of course I’m depressed, I don’t own my body._

_I don’t even know how to feel. I don’t even know what to think. I don’t understand why if I hate this so much I also sometimes like it._

                So yeah, he’s depressed. And he’s okay with it. It hasn’t really changed anything in his life. He’d rather be depressed about being raped than be happy. It’s _just_ depression. He doesn’t want to die. He just wants to get the fuck out of Westerville, out of Ohio, out of the Midwest, and move on with his life. He’s fairly positive that once he’s done that, his life will be better and he’ll be happy.

                _Everything will be perfect._

* * *

 

                The past few weeks have been pretty slow for Kid Chronic. There’s nothing too major going on; no new story arcs, no missing or exploited children to save, not even any animals stuck in trees. He moves around a lot, though, because the Soul Crusher is always on his trail.

                With his mansion having been destroyed years ago, Kid Chronic has been on the run for a while now. Every dilapidated new dwelling he finds to live in can only be inhabited for a few weeks before he eventually has to leave again. He doesn’t carry many belongings with him, but he always has all of the tools he needs to save other kids.

                He helps out a few other superheroes, even though they never help him out. But Kid Chronic helps those who need help, so he travels to far out cities and other countries to assist other superheroes.

                It’s on one particular trip to a country far, far away that Kid Chronic falls in love.

                Not with a _person_ —Kid Chronic does not date people, nor will he ever. He is destined to be alone forever, and that is exactly how he wants it.

                No, Kid Chronic falls in love with the town. It’s large and beautiful with a language that seems to slide easily off the lips of its residents. Everyone is friendly, but not overly so. And Kid Chronic decides that maybe this could be a new start for him.

                After helping out the superheroes who asked for his help, Kid Chronic is unceremoniously dropped from that superhero team and goes back to working for himself. He finds a place to stay with ease, and it’s so much different than all those worn down buildings and decrepit apartments he always squatted in back home. This one is large and bright, with windows that let the sun in but can also be easily blacked out if Kid Chronic ever needs to hide from the outside world.

                Rather quickly he’s able to find kids that need help. He’s saved a few people from nasty neighbors and scary monsters. He helps a few kids tell the truth to stubborn adults who refuse to believe them. A few times he even uses his super strength to save lives. All in all, it’s pretty good and he’s pretty happy, and Kid Chronic thinks that maybe, just maybe, this could be a new chapter in his life.

                His panels become colorful again.

                The dismal black and white landscape has been transformed into rolling hills of green with bright sunshine that hits even the darkest corners.

                But because nothing is at it seems, and because Kid Chronic will never be able to rest or be at peace, the Soul Crusher finds him. Kid Chronic has to leave his apartment and leave his new city. He has to escape and run and hide.

Because no matter where he goes or what he does, the Soul Crusher will always find him.


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains more than just allusions to rape and non-con. It's graphic, but it's not smut. It's just less subtle than previous chapters. There are also references to self-harm. If you have any questions, my [ask box](http://mailroomorder.tumblr.com/ask) is always open, and anon is always enabled. 
> 
> Rebloggable on [Tumblr](http://mailroomorder.tumblr.com/post/107325725290/suffer-in-silence-part-ii)

                 Blaine's always been the type to suffer in silence. He's not sure if that's his natural inclination or a coping mechanism born out of a need to protect himself and his family. Paul always told him that if he told anyone about what was happening then Paul would kill his parents. And now, no matter the reason, Blaine prefers to keep his problems to himself and work his own way through them. Why burden anyone else? Plus, it’s annoying having other people delve into his personal life. He doesn’t like when his parents ask too deep questions. He’s fine on his own.

                His coping methods are unorthodox at best, but Blaine's never questioned the safety of them. If it helps him in the long run then it _can’t_ be unhealthy. So he loses himself in Kid Chronic and runs away occasionally. He locks himself in his room and sometimes plays with his food instead of eating it. He’ll have a month where he loses ten pounds, only to be followed by a month where he gains it back. He’ll scratch his skin so hard until it peels off under his nails and leaves a thin trail of blood on his arms or legs. Every once in a while he’ll lose a small chunk of hair—it’s hardly ever noticeable, Blaine thinks.

               John tells Blaine how unhealthy running away is and avoiding his problems. On a certain level Blaine understands that. He’s heard the spiel over and over again from parents and teachers and psychologists—it gets better. Life gets easier. You just have to work at it. Yadda yadda yadda. Bullshit, Blaine calls it. It gets better for other people, but it doesn’t get better for him.

              “Ten years from now you won’t even know this pain,” John once told him. “You just have to hang in there.”

               It all makes sense to Blaine, but he still doesn’t think it applies to him. He can’t ever imagine a day where he doesn’t feel the phantom weight of a hand or the trail of kisses or the pain of his asshole being unwillingly invaded.

              He knows that it will get better. That he’ll be able to move out of his shit town and forget about all of this. But he can’t wait ten years. He needs it to get better _now_. He knows it won’t, so for now he just has to deal.

             For him, these are the best ways to cope. These are the only things that make him feel even a tiny bit human or alive or in control.

             None of it has ever been purposefully harmful. And none of it has ever really been enough either.

* * *

 

                “How was school today?” His father asks at the dinner table.

                Family dinners are a staple in the Anderson home. Always have been. Sometimes he wonders what they’re like when he runs away. If his parents still sit at the table. If they eat what was cooked. If they sit on the couch and watch TV instead. There’s always leftovers in the fridge the next day.

                “It was good,” Blaine replies, shrugging his shoulders.

                “Want to give me one positive and one negative?” His mother asks.

                _That’s_ a new thing. John introduced it. So did his mother’s therapist. It’s supposed to help Blaine open up about his life and his feelings and it’s supposed to bring them all together as a family. Every night at the dinner table—when Blaine’s at the dinner table, that is—everyone goes around and gives one positive thing that happened and one negative thing that happened that day.

                It’s pretty fucking stupid.

                “Uhm. I had art today, and Mrs. Pembrak let me work on my own stuff again. She helped me with technique and gave me some pointers. So that was a positive. And a negative was probably my math test.”

                “How do you think you did on it?” His father asks.

                Grades aren’t the most important thing in their household. As long as Blaine tries his hardest his parents are okay with him getting the occasional _C_. Blaine thinks it’s because he’s so fucked up; that his parents would rather he focus on his mental health than his grades. But in general Blaine’s an average student. Mostly _B_ s.

                “It was hard. I didn’t fail it. But I don’t know. We weren’t allowed to have a cheat sheet on it, so…” Blaine shrugs, taking a bite of his green beans. “Your turn, Dad.”

                They talk some more and clean up together. Blaine does his homework and then they all meet in the family room to watch a TV show together. Another idea from his mother’s therapist.

                _Get on the same level as Blaine. Find something that interests him and become a part of it. Watch a TV show together. Read the same book._

                It’s not actually bad though. It’s the one time a week Blaine can fall into his parents’ sides and not feel childish. He sits in between them, head on one of their shoulders, and pretends to be normal.

* * *

 

                Blaine hasn’t seen Matt in a few weeks. They share a few classes and sit with each other at lunch, but Blaine’s been skipping lunch and eating secretly in the library or outside in the commons. Baseball season has just wrapped and the weather is getting colder, and Blaine knows this means he’s about to be stuck in his house for a few months.

                It’s always harder to run away when it’s cold outside. He can manage it for a night by staying with Matt or another friend, but wandering around Westerville in the cold isn’t preferable. He assumes that he’ll be spending a lot more time at the library and local bookstores.

                He also spends more time alone with Paul now. During baseball season the Andersons and Paul rarely get together for dinner, as everyone is too busy with work and school and sports. But once the season ends, they meet up two or three times a month to break bread.

                When it’s at Paul’s house, Andrea will often send Blaine over early to help Paul cook. Blaine will then spend the subsequent few hours with tension hunching his shoulders as he chops vegetables or stirs pasta.

                Sometimes he spends random nights or weekends at Paul’s house.

                “You should come over tonight,” Paul will say to him in the morning when Blaine is waiting for the school bus. When it’s really cold outside and snowing, Paul will drive to the bus stop and let Blaine and other kids sit in the warm car while they wait.

                “I miss you,” Paul will whisper into his ear on days when Blaine is at his house, ghosting his hand over Blaine’s lower back.

                And Blaine will go, because he doesn’t have a choice, and because sometimes his body takes him there even when his brain is telling himself to _STOP, TURN AROUND, GO HOME, GO SOMEWHERE_. _GET OUT OF HERE, IT’S NOT SAFE. **YOU’RE NOT SAFE.**_

                “You’re getting to be old,” Paul says one night, sadly. Blaine can see the sparkle of unshed tears behind Paul’s eyes as Paul looks down at him in bed. Blaine wants to cover himself up with his hands or a sheet, but he knows not to. Paul doesn’t like it when he hides.

                “I’m sorry,” Blaine whispers back.

                “Sixteen…” Paul continues, eyes roaming Blaine’s nude chest which is still hair free. His eyes slowly make their way down, further and further, to Blaine’s sparse happy trail and his short thatch of pubic hair. Paul always tell him to shave it off, but sometimes Blaine doesn’t stay on top of it.

                Paul’s hands are soft and almost reverent, and every time he touches Blaine he talks about how beautiful Blaine used to be.

                Blaine doesn’t cry. But he wants to. He thinks Paul wants to cry, too.

                The next day he goes to Matt’s house after school to watch some anime. It’s busty girls and beautiful boys and really good plot, and Blaine knows Matt has a _thing_ for it. He’s seen the pictures Matt draws and been told the fantasies Matt has.

                So it shouldn’t be too surprising when Matt turns to him and asks him a question. It _shouldn’t_ be, but it is.

                “So have you, like…y’know… _done_ anything?” Matt asks, apparent anxiety slowly filling his voice. “Like, sex stuff.”

                Blood fills Blaine’s ears, his heart stutters and skips a few beats, his face blanches and his fingers tense. He’s not sure how he does it, but he looks at Matt dead in the face and replies calmly—normally.

                “No.” He says. “I haven’t.”

                “Me neither,” Matt sighs, turning back to his manga.

                The next day Blaine skips lunch. He talks to Matt in class, but tries his hardest to avoid any alone time with him for fear of the subject coming back up. The next time he runs away, Blaine stays at a different friend’s house.

                Matt may be his best friend, but his kinship isn’t worth it if it means being surrounded by issues of sex.

                It’s becoming harder and harder to avoid though. He’s almost sixteen, he’s in the tenth grade, and in health class they talk about STIs. He’s been subjected to a video of a live birth (and for a second was almost grateful that he likes boys and not girls, until the terrifying reality that he likes _boys_ set in again). All of the popular boys talk about kissing their girlfriends and touching their boobs, and the locker rooms are rife with blow job jokes and detailed descriptions of porn and sex myths. In health class his teacher tells everyone that sex is supposed to feel good, but that they still shouldn’t have it.

                It leaves Blaine with more anxiety than he knows how to deal with. His fingernails are so short from biting them that they frequently bleed. His bald spot is definitely noticeable. He’s started wearing a rubber band around his wrist.

                Sometimes he just wants to walk up to them—to his peers who claim to be so experienced—and tell them that they’re wrong. That sex isn’t like that, that it doesn’t come that easily and it doesn’t feel that good. That that’s not what a blow job feels like and how no one can deep throat their first time.

                More than once he’s been called a virgin, as if it’s some sort of insult to be fifteen and still unsexualized. Sometimes he wants to laugh maniacally and let everyone know just how _experienced_ he is. How much _sex_ he has. _If only they knew_ , he thinks.

                If only they knew what it felt like to have your dick sucked and be glued to a bed, unable to move or say _stop_ or _slow down_. If only they knew what it was like to be laughed at for coming too early. Maybe they’d think sex was less funny if they ever had someone stick a tongue in their ass while they cry from embarrassment. Maybe they’d stop making sex jokes if they knew what it felt like to have a dick shoved into you when you weren’t ready, or fingers probing your most private places.

                Maybe they’d laugh less if they knew what it felt like to not own your body.

                He hates it. He hates that he bends to the will of someone else. That his body succumbs to its touch, to its demands. He hates that he wears green because Paul asks him to. He hates that green, which was once the color of good, the color of Kid Chronic, the color that embodied heroism, is now the color he wears to bed with Paul, the color of Paul’s sheets, the color of his baseball uniforms since he was a child.

                He hates that when Paul says jump, Blaine replies with, “Is this high enough? Am I doing it right?”

* * *

 

                Blaine’s heard about cutting. It’s on the news and it’s online, it’s in every teen self-help book or puberty manual. He’s heard about it in therapy with John, in the teen group therapy sessions his parents sometimes force him to go to. He’s even heard about it in health class.

                It’s all rather stupid, he thinks. So is anorexia and bulimia. Why would someone do that to their body? How is ignoring hunger pains going to make you happy? How is slicing your skin open supposed to make you feel good? Blaine knows what pain feels like, and he can’t compute how it could be cathartic, why people would want to do that _to_ _themselves_

                It happens accidentally, though. Well, as accidentally as grabbing an X-ACTO knife from art class and putting it to his skin can be.

                He wanted to know what it felt like. It was purely curiosity. A small slit in his inside wrist after school when he’s back home and in his room.

                It hurts like a paper cut and bleeds just as much. It doesn’t do anything. No catharsis or prophetic experience. No sudden release of tension or anger. All this experience does is solidify in Blaine the complete stupidity of cutting in the first place.

                He wipes the blood off with some toilet paper and doesn’t even cover it with a band aid. A few days later it’s completely healed up with not even a scar to show for it.

                The X-ACTO knife is put into a drawer in his desk and completely forgotten about until a little more than a month later.

* * *

 

                Paul takes and takes and takes. It’s brutal, and scary this time, in ways that it hasn’t been since he was a child.

                Paul’s everywhere all at once, and he’s drunk. His calloused hands grip hard and his face is red and there are tears, and Blaine can’t tell if they’re his tears or Paul’s tears, or maybe even both.

                It _hurts_.

                Blaine doesn’t even get hard, and for some reason that turns Paul on more, and Blaine can’t help but be even more disgusted and upset.

                He has scratches on his stomach from where Paul grabbed too hard, and a tender cheek from an unexpected slap to the face. Paul’s crying and sometimes what he says is barely comprehensible. He screams and yells at Blaine, says that Blaine is wrong and perverted and how nothing is going right.

                At random intervals Paul will beg and plead for forgiveness, and Blaine has no choice but accept his apologies. He doesn’t even know what Paul is sorry for, but he accepts it anyway because he doesn’t want to see Paul like this: crying and wheezing and angry and sad, completely out of control and taking it all out on Blaine.

                With unsteady hands Blaine pats him softly on the head afterwards, rubs his hand over Paul’s cheek, places a gentle kiss to Paul’s lips. It tastes like salt.

                “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he pleads, again and again, voice trembling and tears streaking his face. Paul’s not even listening. Blaine’s not even sure if he’s talking more to Paul or himself.

                After a few minutes Paul gets up and walks away.

                “You should leave,” he says as he slams the bathroom door shut, his back to Blaine’s face.

                Blaine sits there, stunned to silence. He doesn’t cry out or protest, doesn’t stand up or relax. Just stays there, frozen on the spot for a few minutes, until he hears the shower shut off and the door open and Paul screams at him.

                “Get the fuck out of here!”

                Blaine’s startled into action, afraid that if he doesn’t the redness on his cheek might become a bruise.

                He’s never been kicked out before. Ever.

                Not out of the house, at least.

                Sometimes when he was a kid Paul would carry him to the guest bedroom and leave him there alone for the night. But it was always after an extended cuddle session and with a soft kiss to his forehead.

                Blaine pulls on his boxer briefs—because Paul didn’t like it when he wore boxers—and then his pants. He shoves his sweatshirt on and leaves his shirt on the ground. He puts his shoes on without socks at the front door. He ignores the pain in his ass and hopes to god that there’s no blood.

                And then he runs home, crying, the whole time.

                His parents are out to dinner with some friends. It’s why Blaine was at Paul’s in the first place.

                In all the years he’s been with Paul, he’s never felt so _used_. He’s felt dirty before, he’s felt disgusted. He’s felt less than human. But it takes on a whole new level when he’s home and in his bedroom with the door locked. He rips his clothes off and sits on his bed, hunching over and crying into his hands.

                He takes the hottest shower he can and tries to rub the feeling off with a course washcloth, but it doesn’t work. It’s sunken in so deep that it just won’t come out, and Blaine can’t stop crying. He doesn’t know what he did wrong but he wants to fix it. He wants to call Paul and beg for forgiveness. He wants to go over there and be surrounded by Paul’s arms and his scent.

                He thinks back onto the night and picks and prods at it, searching for a misstep. Dinner was fine, Paul ate what Blaine cooked. He slid his hand on top of Blaine’s while they ate. He left his hand on Blaine’s thigh when they were watching TV. The only problem Blaine can think of was that he didn’t cum. He didn’t get hard. He thought it was fine, he thought Paul was more than okay with it. But nothing else seems right.

                He throws up in the toilet, he calls Paul but gets his voicemail. He rips out a few more pieces of hair and scratches a few more marks onto his biceps and the back of his neck. He paces his room.

                He leaves a voicemail on Paul’s phone begging for forgiveness.

                “I’m sorry I wasn’t hard,” he cries. “I swear I liked it. I swear. Every time, I like it every time.” He can hardly catch his breath and there’s a golf ball sized lump in his throat and he can’t even see himself in the mirror because he’s crying so much.

                “I love you,” he breaks down.

                When he’s able to hang up and gain some composure he opens his closet door and stares at himself in the full sized mirror. He hates his body. He always has. He hates what it’s capable of and how it does what it wants—what _Paul_ wants, and never what Blaine wants.

                He hates his penis and the hormones that make it grow hard. He hates that he doesn’t have a choice in what turns him on and how his penis has a mind of its own. He hates the soft flesh of his thighs and how easily it bruises. He hates his asshole—hates everything about it. He can hardly stomach wiping himself there unless there’s an ample amount of toilet paper acting as a barrier between skin-to-skin contact. He hates shaving there, but he hates Paul’s reaction to hair more. So he suffers through manscaping just to make Paul happy.

Looking in the mirror he’s just reminded of all the things he hates about himself.

                Without realizing it, he grabs the X-ACTO knife from his drawer and he sits on his bed, still facing his mirror. He leans over and slices the tiniest of lines on the soft skin where his thigh meets his pelvis, and he watches as a thin line of red becomes visible.

                He does it again. And again.

                Small lines on the part of his body that he hates the most. And for once, his body does what’s expected of it. It hurts when it’s supposed to hurt. It bleeds when it’s been broken.

                He finally looks like how he feels.

                And it feels good. _Really_ good. So he does it again.

                Afterwards he looks up at himself in the mirror and feels strangely at peace. His face is red and puffy and streaked with drying tears and snot, his thighs are covered with scabbing blood, his hair is sticking out all over the place, and Blaine can finally breathe again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always mean the world to me.
> 
> Rebloggable on [Tumblr](http://mailroomorder.tumblr.com/post/107325725290/suffer-in-silence-part-ii)


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rebloggable on my [Tumblr](http://mailroomorder.tumblr.com/post/107740648290/suffer-in-silence-complete)

               Everything is small on him. He’s thin—always has been—but suddenly everything is _small._ He feels like he can’t bend down in his pants without them ripping, or lift his hands in the air without his shirt going up past his belly button. His voice cracks _all_ the time and he can’t remember when that started, but he swears it wasn’t like this a month ago. His shoes don’t fit him unless his bends his toes while he walks, and it’s really uncomfortable. When he brings it up to his mom she suggests a shopping trip.

                It’s always weird going shopping. Blaine doesn’t really have a style beyond jeans and plain t-shirts. Sometimes he’ll throw in a graphic tee, maybe a band shirt or a comic book shirt. Sometimes he wears plaid button ups or solid colored sweaters. He hates standing out, but there’s something about those button ups that attracts him despite how loud they are. Still, he buys them in muted colors and doesn’t think twice.

                “You’re growing so fast!” his mother says in Target that Saturday Saturday. “I know that anything we buy now won’t fit in a few months anyway.”

                But still she dotes on him and hands him clothes to try on in the dressing room. She tells him what looks good and what doesn’t, which clothes go together and which don’t. He’s like a rag doll; he’ll wear whatever she gives him.

                While his mother is checking out Blaine goes to the bathroom. When he’s washing his hands he looks in the mirror and sees some tiny black hairs jutting out of his chin. He stares at them for a few seconds before he realizes that this isn’t just stray chin hairs—this is peach fuzz. This belongs there.

                _Paul probably won’t like that_ , Blaine thinks, running his fingers over his chin and feeling the hair. _I’ll have to fix that when I get home._

* * *

 

                “So what’s Kid Chronic up to these days?” John asks from the chair directly across from where Blaine is sitting on the love seat.

                It’s a week after the first _real_ cutting incident, and the overwhelming guilt attached to it has already passed.

                “Not much,” Blaine replies, his hands fisted together and squeezed in between his thighs.

                He can still feel the cuts when he clenches his legs really hard. The reminder feels good.

                “Still stuck in a writer’s block?” John prods.

                Blaine shakes his head.

                “He’s back in America. Back in his town. He found an old shack to live in and helps out a few kids who get into trouble.” Blaine looks at John, shaking his legs up and down so the denim of his jeans can irritate his wounds.

                “And the Soul Crusher?” John asks.

                Blaine swallows thickly and stops moving. “The Soul Crusher’s nowhere to be seen.”

* * *

 

 

                Paul won’t talk to Blaine. He hasn’t returned any of Blaine’s phone calls, or any of his texts. He won’t answer the door when Blaine knocks. He cancels the dinner plans with Blaine’s parents for the following week. He doesn’t show up to the batting cages to help Blaine practice switch hitting even though they planned it.

                Total radio silence.

                Blaine used to dream of this. That one day he would wake up and Paul would have disappeared or moved on. Blaine always envisioned himself glowing with happiness and marching downstairs every day with a smile on his face and an extra kick in his step. He always imagined all of the great times he’d have, all of the nightmares he’d no longer suffer from. Immediately he would have a large group of friends who’d always want to play with him and he’d no longer have to go to therapy and his mother would smile again, not just with her mouth but with her eyes, too.

                The reality is nothing like that. The reality is so much worse.

                Blaine feels lost and untethered. This is all his fault, he _knows_ it. He knows it to be true. But he can’t for the life of him figure out how to fix it, and he’s never felt so desperate in his life. He’s never craved Paul’s touch, _ever_. But now he finds himself dreaming of it. It’s still a nightmare, and he still doesn’t enjoy it. But to _not_ have Paul in his life? To be totally kicked out of it and have his life spun around on its head? Blaine’s completely and totally lost, and all he wants is for Paul to lay him out on his bed and take what belongs to him.

                It’s a disconcerting thought: that Blaine wants something that he also hates. That he wants Paul to do all of the things that he also wants Paul _not_ to do. It’s confusing and it’s angering and it leaves Blaine feeling completely off balance and volatile. He snaps at his parents, he locks himself in his room, he officially has a very noticeable bald spot on the right side of his head, and any food he manages to eat ends up in a toilet a few minutes later. He’s afraid to even weigh himself.

                He finds himself eagerly doing the things that he never wants to do. Shaving himself was always a chore, but _Paul_ likes him hairless, so he’d do it occasionally anyway. Now every night he finds himself in the shower maintaining his smooth thighs and armpits, making sure his chin is as hairless as always. He wonders what Paul would say if he knew that Blaine grows hair there now.

                His room, which was always a bit messy with art supplies everywhere is more organized and sparse than ever before. Blaine throws out two trash bags of junk. He practices switch hitting anyway, even though Paul never shows up. He cleans the living room and the family room and he cooks his parents’ dinner even a few nights though he barely eats any of it. He washes his face more than he probably should, but he wants to get rid of the few pimples that keep popping up. He wants to look presentable in case Paul calls. He hangs out with Matt and goes to the mall and buys himself a forest green polo because he can’t stop staring at it. He tries to fill his time with meaningful activities so he can stop thinking about _Paul_ and _sex_ and how he feels, but it doesn’t work.

                He cries himself to sleep every night, tossing and turning the whole time as he struggles with the idea of _wanting_ : what he does want and what he doesn’t, and how it could be the same thing at the same time.

                He pulls the X-ACTO knife out again and crosses Xs on his thigh crease—even going dangerously close to his ball sac. The pain is so unimaginable and so _real_ all at the same time, and it’s enough to center him and bring him out of his own head.

                It’s enough to help him sleep.

* * *

 

                Kid Chronic is going crazy. Absolutely going crazy. He’s huddling in the corner of his shack and shaking and shuffling back and forth and staring at the door in anticipation. Every noise he hears leaves him terrified, and the sun hasn’t risen in days. His superhero uniform is torn and the pants don’t even reach his ankles. The sleeves are supposed to be long, but they fall just below his elbows.

                John, to be quite frank, is more than a little worried.

                Blaine hasn’t slept well in days, even with the cutting, and he feels like he’s not even in his own body. He feels like he’s just going through the motions.

                “Why’s he doing that?” John asks while they sit diagonal at the small table in his office.

                “Doing what?” Blaine asks.

                “Why is Kid Chronic so afraid when he’s never been before?”

                John’s stare is cold as ice, and Blaine can barely raise his gaze to meet John’s. He’s afraid if he does that the truth, or at least some of it, will spill out. He’s afraid that he’ll start blurting things that he’s been trying so hard to keep secret.

                “I don’t know,” Blaine muses softly.

_Kid Chronic knows a change is coming, he just doesn’t know what it is or when it will come._

                “Can we talk about his size?” John asks.

                “What about it?”

                “He’s noticeably…bigger, correct?”

                Blaine shrugs his shoulders. “He’s growing up.”

                “And are you growing up?” John asks.

                Blaine bites his bottom lip and continues looking at the panel in front of him—black and white again, because every color he picks up makes him want to puke.

                “Everyone grows up,” he replies acerbically, looking up at John with a scowl.

* * *

 

Around the age of seven, Blaine began wetting the bed. It wasn’t something he had ever done before. Potty training for him was more of a ‘one and done’ type thing. One day when he was two and a half he woke up and said, “Mommy, I want to use the potty.”

                And he did. He potty trained himself. He had almost no accidents. He wore Pull Ups at night for a few months, but when he woke up dry every morning for three weeks, his parents got rid of them, and Blaine became the youngest kid in his preschool to be completely toilet trained. He wasn’t even three.

                Which is why it was so strange, four years later, for Blaine to wake up almost every night soaking wet. His parents talked to friends and called their doctor, but in the end they were told that everything was normal.

                “It makes sense for him to react this way. He’s in a very stressful situation,” the doctor had said. “In a few weeks, as everyone heals, this will get better.”

                His parents told him this story when he was older.

                “We were all out of whack,” his father had said. They were reminiscing about the past, and it was one of only a handful of times Blaine can remember his father ever opening up about this particular topic. His parents normally pretended like it never happened. “Your mom had just given birth to a stillborn. We had to explain to you that you no longer had a baby brother. Family and friends were coming to the house and everyone acted like someone had died—and you were so confused. You spent a week at Paul’s afterwards. We wanted to get you out of the situation, keep your daily structure normal. But when you came home, I guess you just picked up on everything. You started wetting the bed. You were really clingy. The doctor said it was the sudden stress of the situation—that you were feeding off of our energy and coping in your own way. You used to throw up all the time, too.”

               Hearing that story when he was eleven almost made Blaine throw up again.

* * *

 

              They always talk about Stranger Danger. Don't get into a car with strangers, don't take candy from people you don't know, don't help search for lost dogs. They never tell you what to do when it’s a friend though, or a parent, a guiding figure in your life. Paul wasn’t a stranger. Blaine trusted him—depended on him. He loved going over to Paul’s house and playing in Paul’s pool. Affectionate pats on his back made Blaine feel good about himself. Paul was like the cool uncle that Blaine never had; he was young and stylish, good looking and fun, and all he wanted to do was make Blaine laugh. Blaine’s other aunts and uncles lived far away and had annoying kids that liked to push Blaine around.

              People never tell you what to do when it’s someone you love. All they ever tell you is that the only people who are allowed to touch your privates are the people you trust: your parents and your doctors. But Blaine _did_ trust Paul. He was family.

              They don’t tell you how to deal with the grief and betrayal, or how to manage the unwavering dependence and allegiance.

               Eventually, when you're older, they might tell you that _it’s not your fault. You did nothing wrong_.

              Too little too late, though. What they don't tell you is how to deal with your shame. What they neglect to mention is that the person threatening to kill your parents if you tell won't actually kill your parents. No one ever mentions how _hard_ it is to tell the truth. But you hear all the time from naïve students how stupid someone must be for getting into a stranger’s car.

             “They deserve it if they’re that dumb,” Blaine’s heard.

              “They’re an idiot for not telling their parents.”

              “This doesn’t happen anymore.”

              “It’s not that big of a deal, right? Not if it feels good.”

              Blaine likes comics because art shows so much more than words ever could. He sometimes wishes he were more vocal and eloquent, more knowledgeable in how to form a sentence and tell a story.

             How else will he tell someone what it feels like to be so afraid of the truth? To be so afraid of the reaction of others. He doesn’t want to let his parents down. He knows this revelation will fuck up everything in his entire life, and he thinks he might be too selfish to let that happen.

             He wants to know if there’s a word in the English language that describes what it’s like to hate someone you love. He _loves_ Paul. He really fucking loves Paul. Not as a boyfriend or a friend or a coach, but as a constant guiding figure in his life. He doesn’t remember his life before Paul. He doesn’t know if he can imagine his life without Paul, either.

            He doesn’t want to see Paul in an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs on. He just wants to get as far away from Paul as possible. He wants Paul to still have a life and for no one to ever know what transpired between the two of them. He wants to run away and never come back. He wants to grow up and accept what’s happened to him and not let it affect his future. He wants to be free.

            He has these lofty dreams of never speaking to Paul again, but now that he’s not speaking to Paul at all, he doesn’t know if that’s ever possible. Suddenly the idea of not having Paul there for him breaks Blaine. He thinks about what life might be like in the future without having Paul tell him what to do or where to go, what clothes to wear or what to make for dinner, and he doesn’t know if he could do it. He’s afraid that no matter how far away he gets from Paul, it will never be far enough, because he’ll still need Paul in his life.

_He wants to be free._

           But he also wants Paul’s love and affection. And now that he’s not been getting it, he’s learning more about himself and his relationship with Paul than he ever has before.

* * *

 

                Blaine feels like he’s going out of his mind. He can go from angry to lethargic in a matter of minutes. He loses his creative flow and spends more time doodling in the margins of school work than actually creating Kid Chronic stories. He hangs out with Matt and some of his other friends. He runs away once, but it’s so hard that he ends up coming home that night anyway. He just wanted to lay in bed and do nothing. He didn’t want to have to think, he didn’t want to walk around and find ways to occupy his time. So he comes home after eleven and walks right past his parents and goes up to his room. He turns some music on and falls onto his back and doesn’t move for hours. He stares at his ceiling and doesn’t think. When a stray thought works its way through, the tears will start to form in the corner of his eyes and Blaine will blink really hard and wipe them away with his sweater and he won’t open his eyes back up until he’s sure that the thought is gone and he can just stare at the ceiling again.

                He has fluorescent star and planet stickers on his ceiling, dozens upon dozens. His parents used to always buy him packs for good behavior and help him stick them on the ceiling. There’s no rhyme or reason to their placement, and in the corner of the room is a glow-in-the-dark _B_ that he put up with stars when he was eight. Sometimes Blaine just lies in his bed and stares at the stars on his ceiling and tries to find constellations.

 

* * *

 

                When Paul starts talking to him it’s noticeably colder outside. Thanksgiving is on its way and there’s a chill in the air, and more often than not Blaine is wearing a jacket to keep warm. It’s green and hangs loose. It makes him look younger than he really is.

                Paul’s pool is closed. The hot tub, though, is not.

                His parents go over and use it with Paul on the weekends. Blaine stays home and tries not to go out of his mind.

                It’s been five weeks and three days since Blaine’s heard anything from Paul. Not a single text has been sent between them. When his parents ask if he’s going to Paul’s house or if he’s seen Paul lately, Blaine tends to grunt noncommittally or bark at them to get out of his life and stop asking so many questions.

                After all, closed doors and tight lips have become the norm in his house.

* * *

 

                That whole month is hard on Blaine. It’s hard on his body, it’s hard on his psyche. The new pants he bought a few weeks earlier now hang loose, his thigh and groin are littered with unhealed and semi-healed cuts, and the bald spot on his head still hasn’t grown back. His hair is long and curly—unkempt. He hasn’t kept up with shaving like Paul prefers. After a while when he realizes that Paul wasn’t going to answer him Blaine just stops.

                His parents are wary. John is scared. Blaine is just lost.

                _Come over tonight_.

                Blaine gets the text while in school. It’s a Friday. It’s his birthday. It’s a relief.

                When he gets home from school he showers and shaves and moisturizes. He picks out a nice pair of pants and puts on the green polo he bought before trying to style his hair into something less messy. He doesn’t know what time ‘tonight’ is, so he paces in his room for hours until his clock changes to six and he runs out of his house.

                He doesn’t even have to knock on Paul’s door. It’s pulled open before Blaine even lifts his hand.

                The rest is just…motions.

                Blaine doesn’t remember most of it after it happens. Just small snippets and memories that seep through when he thinks really hard about it. He doesn’t remember how they got up to Paul’s bed, but he remembers Paul apologizing. He doesn’t remember if they ate dinner or watched a movie, but he remembers Paul muttering a few things into his ear.

                “If you would only _listen_ to me Blaine, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”

                He doesn’t remember if it hurt, but he remembers Paul expressing happiness at Blaine’s smooth and hairless skin and his pimple free face. Blaine doesn’t remember much, but he remembers the lights being off. He isn’t sure if he told his parents where he was going, but he remembers waking up the next morning, naked in Paul’s bed, and he remembers wanting to cry.

                He doesn’t remember if he actually does.

                He ends up back at his house before nine in the morning. He has a family breakfast with his parents; waffles and bacon and homemade iced tea that Blaine carefully sips.

                He doesn’t remember the details, but the larger picture is quite clear.

                He and Paul…they’re forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like it? Hate it? Kinda feel meh about it? Want to murder Paul? Think I'm a shit writer who should just stop writing and move to the countryside and disappear off the face of the earth? Use that blank comment box below to tell me!
> 
> Rebloggable on my [Tumblr](http://mailroomorder.tumblr.com/post/107740648290/suffer-in-silence-complete)


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